One person dead, multiple injured after cars crashes into ditch in El Paso’s upper valley

EL PASO, Texas -- One person is dead and seven others are injured after an SUV fell into an irrigation ditch in the upper valley early Monday morning.

The single-vehicle crash happened around 5:30 a.m at the intersection of Artcraft and Upper Valley. El Paso fire crews arrived on the scene first. Water rescue teams were called out to pull eight victims out of the ditch.

El Paso police confirmed one person did die on scene. One person was sent to the hospital with serious injuries. The other six were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

A spokesperson for the El Paso Police department said Border Patrol officers were conducting a traffic stop on a vehicle when a speeding SUV crashed into a Border Patrol unit.

The SUV continued east on Upper Valley.

According to police, by the time other Border Patrol units later arrived, the SUV was found crashed inside the irrigation ditch at the 6000 block of Upper Valley.

Special Traffic Investigators are taking the lead on the investigation. No other information on the victims was made available.

No injuries to law enforcement have been reported.

Authorities have not said if those involved in the crash are migrants.

The El Paso Police department is seeing an increase in migrant-related crashes, according to El Paso Police department Spokesperson, Sgt. Enrique Carrillo.

Carrillo said these pursuits are a direct result of human smuggling activity and the blame should not fall on law enforcement.

He said human traffickers are endangering the migrants and the general public.

Border Patrol Spokesperson for the El Paso sector said with the increase in encounters, they have also seen an increase in organized smuggling schemes that can be attributed to the sophisticated networks that the Transnational Criminal Organizations have in place, from the point of origin and through established routes to the El Paso Sector border region. 

In a statement to ABC-7, he said “TCOs exploit migrants for money and continue to place their lives in danger.  Information received via our law enforcement partners and through migrant interviews, indicate that smugglers are instructed, by TCOs, not to stop for Law Enforcement during vehicle/immigration stops. They are instructed to flee and fail to yield.”